Bamboozled December 6, 2018: Do you shop on Amazon? Don’t buy another item until you read about this scam

Hope Clary said she was scammed by a third party seller on Amazon.com. (Credit: Hope Clary)

Amazon.com is one of the most popular destinations for holiday shoppers.

You can buy practically anything. Shipping is often free, returns are easy and consumers can count on certain guarantees.

But some third party sellers – fake merchants who post items for sale on Amazon – are tricking consumers to pay outside the Amazon site, some customers say. Consumers don’t get their orders, and their money vanishes.

It’s a scam we first told you about in 2014 when a shopper whose home was without power for five days after Superstorm Sandy decided to buy a generator. He found a used one on Amazon for $798.

When he decided to buy, he was instructed by the seller over Amazon’s internal messaging system to pay via Western Union. After he did, he never received the generator and the money was long gone.

More cases of fraud

Then in 2016 we learned of more cases of fraud, this time with a new twist.

One man wanted to buy a $500 drone. The seller went back and forth with him through text messages and emails, and told the buyer to pay using Amazon gift cards. He did, but then he never received the drone and the money was gone.

Another man said he was instructed by the seller of a computer to pay with Amazon gift cards. He lost $441.

And still another shopper paid $1,000 for a generator using Amazon gift cards. Then the seller asked for $1,000 more for shipping insurance. The buyer didn’t fall for it a second time.

Back then, we spoke to dozens of consumers who shared similar tales. No one received their items, and they all lost their money.

The scams continue

The scam was bad enough, but Amazon wasn’t taking extra steps to warn or protect consumers, or at least not that we could find on the site.

Fake merchants remained on the site after fraud claims were made by shoppers, consumers said. Amazon didn’t post any warnings in easy-to-see spots on the site, or at least not that we could find.

The company didn’t even want to talk about it when we reported the issues.

Over the years, we’ve received similar complaints from consumers who said they were scammed in the same way. But now that the 2018 holiday shopping season is in full swing, there’s been an uptick in complaints in our inbox.

It’s time to revisit the issue.

The John Deere Gator Hope Clary thought she was buying on Amazon.com. (Credit: Hope Clary)

A new case

Hope Clary contacted Bamboozled after she tried to buy a John Deere XUV Gator, a four-wheel utility vehicle, just before Thanksgiving.

The price was $2,500.

The seller sent her several pictures of the Gator, and she decided to buy.

“The seller instructed me to purchase five $500 Amazon gift cards to purchase the item,” Clary said. “The seller expressed to me that it would protect both of us from any problems that could arise in the sale.”

The seller sent an invoice that had blank spaces where the buyer would input the gift card numbers, and it even offered a list of stores close to Clary where she could make the purchases.

A copy of the invoice Hope Clary was sent by the fake seller. (Credit: Hope Clary)

Before going ahead with the purchase, she wanted to make sure the gift cards were the way to go, so she clicked on the “contact” button within an email.

The person at the other end – which we now know was a scammer and not a real Amazon employee – confirmed the gift cards were the proper form of payment.

So she bought the cards, completed the invoice and then sent the PIN numbers, she said.

Days passed and the seller vanished, removing the item from the Amazon site and not responding to emails.

Clary contacted Amazon – the real Amazon this time – and she learned she’d been scammed. The money was already taken off the Amazon gift cards she purchased, she said she was told, and Amazon said there was nothing it could do.

“I am absolutely sick about this,” she said.

What to do

Anyone who falls victim to a scam should report it to their local police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation through the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and in this case, Amazon.

But consumers shouldn’t expect to see their money back.

As we discovered with similar scams, once the money is gone, it’s gone.

Once you leave Amazon’s website and communicate with a seller through regular email, text or any other way, you lose the protections Amazon offers.

Of all the cases we contacted Amazon about, only one resulted in Amazon returning the lost money to a consumer.

What Amazon has to say

Frustratingly, when we went back to Amazon about Clary’s case and to ask it to point us to its safety tips for consumers, Amazon never responded.

So we went digging into Amazon’s site to see what we could find.

Since our first round of stories, Amazon seems to have beefed up its warnings to include information about Amazon payment scams on its website.

It also seems to have added a page that gives advice specifically about gift card scams.

Among its tips is a statement that said no legitimate sale or transaction will require you to pay specifically with gift cards.

That’s true.

It also tells consumers to “never use Amazon.com gift cards for payment outside of Amazon or its affiliated properties and never use gift cards for other retailers and brands outside of the intended brand.”

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More on gift cards

It said Amazon.com gift cards can only be used on Amazon after you have redeemed them to your own Amazon account, and they should “not be used to make payments to other businesses or individuals.”

Then it warns consumers to never provide gift card details to someone you don’t know and trust.

“Once a claim code, from any gift card, is provided to a scammer, the funds will likely be spent before you are able to contact law enforcement or Amazon,” it said.

Those are valuable tips, but it’s still a disappointment that the information isn’t easy to find.

Given the prevalence of the scam – based on our reader emails, anyway – why can’t the site put a warning at the top of its home page? Or add a banner on product pages for items sold by third-party sellers?

That would serve a lot of good and probably cut down on the number of scam victims.

Other tips

Know that there are legitimate ways to ask questions of a seller before you purchase a product. You’ll find a spot for this on most product pages.

If a seller wants to contact you by email outside of the Amazon system, forget it. Find another seller. Getting you outside of Amazon is what the seller wants.

Crooks will impersonate Amazon to get your money. They’ll use very real looking Amazon logos on emails to make the communication look legit. They’ll also copy language used on Amazon order confirmation emails, so look carefully before you believe something is the real thing.

Never follow any links offered by a seller regarding a payment. Never.

The seller may tell you the transaction is covered by Amazon. Well, it’s only covered by Amazon if you pay through Amazon Payments directly on the Amazon page — not on an impersonation page that’s made to look like the real thing.

Amazon does accept its own gift cards for purchases, as it should. But those gift cards would be credited to your account, not given directly to a seller.

So if a seller tells you to buy gift cards to pay for an item, run the other way. The seller will next tell you to share the gift card numbers and PIN, and that’s how they’ll steal your money.

The real Amazon will never tell you to buy gift cards to pay for an item.

Check out the seller

Before you decide to buy any product from a third-party seller, check out consumer reviews of both the product and the seller.

Of course, as we recently reported, some of the reviews could be fakes. Be sure to read this story that offers tips on how you can spot the fake ones.